“Now, can you tell me anything about the occurrences of the night on which you were attacked?”
“I cannot tell you much.”
“You did not go to bed?”
“I did not. I remained up thinking over some matters and arranging the details of a certain matter when I was suddenly made aware of the proximity of somebody by hearing a suppressed cough. I turned around and saw a man close to me, with a club in his hand, and was on the point of calling out when struck. The club hit me squarely on the head and I knew no more until I found myself in the arms of a man in a narrow, dark hall. Recovering consciousness then, I began to struggle with him, and, although I did not succeed in getting away, I gave him a great deal of trouble. He got the best of me by striking me again, when my senses once more left me. In that condition I must have been carried upstairs, for I imagined the dark hall to have been that of this house, and, on my showing signs of returning consciousness, the man drugged me. All this last I recall in a dim and confused way only.”
Questioned as to how he escaped from his captor, Luke, Mr. Field said the man had evidently drugged him every time he left him alone, for the hubbub caused by the detective’s entrance had awakened him from a deep stupor, and when he arose from the couch on which he was lying, there was no one to dispute his escape. His captor no doubt thought the drug more powerful than it was.
Despite Luke’s villainy, Nick could not but admire his courage in secreting his prisoner in the very house his pals were occupying.
Nick now asked some questions that went to prove the truth of the story told by Timon, the butler, in whom Mr. Field reposed the utmost confidence.
The replies satisfied the detective that the servants in the house were guiltless of any participation in the crime.
Nick then said to him:
“Excuse me, Field, if I refer to a period in your past that must arouse sad memories, for I have a special purpose in view in doing so. I do not refer to your previous similar experience, but to a fact concealed by you from the world. You married after your return to this country, and had a child?”